Napoleon Bonaparte Revolutionary or Tyrant?

Transcription

1 Name: Class: Napoleon Bonaparte Revolutionary or Tyrant? By Mike Kubic 2016 Mike Kubic is a former correspondent of Newsweek magazine. In the turmoil following the French Revolution, a low-ranking noble and military general rose to power, eventually becoming a major figure in early modern European history. This passage discusses the life and legacy of Napoleon Bonaparte, the French dictator and emperor. As you read, take notes on Napoleon s actions, motivations, and mistakes and how these pieces contribute to his lasting legacy. [1] Napoleon was a towering phenomenon, a prolific 1 genius who two centuries ago dominated Europe and changed its history. He was a military paragon, a natural-born warrior and a ruthless conqueror bent on controlling ever more nations and territory. He was a brilliant politician who changed seamlessly from a leftist 2 revolutionary to an autocrat. 3 And most astonishingly, he was a cerebral 4 author of liberal political reforms and lasting guidelines for civic progress and decency. Historians have written scores of books about Napoleon, but to this day they don t agree on what manner of man he was, and what was his legacy. Rise to Power There is no question about Napoleon s overwhelming, single-minded, and for a time "Napoleon Crossing the Alps" by Jacques-Louis David is in the public domain. triumphant drive to expand his power and rule all of Europe. He set out on that quest already as a young lieutenant in the French Army when, following the 1792 fall of the French monarchy, 5 he left his native Corsica 6 and moved to Paris. 1. Prolific (adjective): productive or creative; present in large numbers or quantities 2. A leftist is someone who supports the political views or policies on the left (of the left-right spectrum, in which the left represents more liberal views and the right is more conservative). 3. Autocrat (noun): a ruler with absolute power 4. Cerebral (adjective): intellectual rather than emotional or physical 5. During the French Revolution, there was great contempt for the French nobility, particularly against King Louis XVI and his wife Queen Marie Antoinette, whom were blamed for national debt, limitation of rights, poverty, poor harvests, high taxes, etc. This hatred was further aggravated by the lavish lifestyles led by the French elite. The French Revolution reached a high point with the fall of the monarchy and the execution of the king and queen. 1

2 [5] A member of a low-ranking nobility, he made allies with important leaders of the French Revolution 7 and was quickly promoted to general. In 1795, he won his first battle by defeating a royalist 8 uprising, and the same year he fought against the armies of Austria and Italy. He later told an aide that after one of his early victories, I no longer considered myself a mere general, but a man called upon to decide the fate of peoples. Napoleon was 26 years old, and the way he answered his calling was by fighting what one biographer called a series of unnecessary wars. In 1798, he persuaded the revolutionary Directorate 9 that ruled the French Republic to put him in charge of an ambitious expedition to Egypt and Syria. It was his first major attempt to undermine the power of Britain by cutting its trade route to India. Napoleon failed dismally to accomplish that objective, but his career continued to flourish. 10 In 1799, upon his return to France, he organized a coup 11 against the five-man Directorate and became the First of the three Consuls 12 who seized control of the Republic. [10] In 1803, he sold 827,000 square miles of territory west of the Mississippi River to the administration of President Thomas Jefferson. For $15 million about $250 million in 2016 dollars it was a tremendous bargain for Uncle Sam: the so-called Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of what was then the United States. But Napoleon needed the money for a planned invasion of Great Britain and to launch a campaign against the coalition of Russia, Prussia 13 and small German states called the Holy Roman Empire. 14 While fighting that war, in 1804, Napoleon climbed the ultimate political rung by prevailing 15 on Pope Pius VII 16 to coronate 17 him the Emperor of France Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea belonging to France, located west of the Italian Peninsula. The language of Corsica is thought to closer resemble Italian than French. Indeed, Napoleon was born Napoleone di Buonaparte. 7. The French Revolution was a period in French history (circa ). The French Bourbon monarchy was overthrown and replaced with a republic that experienced several violent periods of political turmoil all of which culminated in Napoleon s dictatorship. 8. A supporter of the monarchy or crown 9. The Directory was a five-member committee that governed the French Republic from November 1795 (replacing the Committee of Public Safety) until November 1799, when it was overthrown by Napoleon. 10. Flourish (verb): to thrive or prosper 11. Coup (noun): a sudden, violent seizure of power from a government or ruler 12. The Consulate ruled over France from 1799 until 1804 with the rise of the Napoleonic Empire. Napoleon was the First Consul, and the other two included Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès and Charles-François Lebrun. 13. Prussia, at its peak, was one of the most important states in the German Empire, expanding across Eastern and Central Europe. It was dissolved during WWII, becoming incorporated into various territories, including Poland and the Soviet Union. As of 1945, Prussia ceased to formally exist. 14. The Holy Roman Empire was composed of several central European territories and ruled under an elective monarchy. It was established in the Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in Prevail (verb): to prove more powerful than an opposing force; to be victorious 16. Despite crowning Napoleon, Pope Pius VII ( ) was often in conflict with him. In fact, in 1809, France annexed the Papal States and took Pius VII as their prisoner, exiling him. 17. Coronate (verb): to crown a ruler 18. This new title, as opposed to the King of France, was supposed to demonstrate that the monarchy was not being restored but another system was being in place. It also spoke to Napoleon s desire to increase his power and control. 2

3 In 1805, he added to his title the King of Italy, and by 1806 he won all of his ground battles against the three European enemies. His attempt to invade England, however, failed disastrously in the Battle of Trafalgar, 19 where the British navy without losing a single vessel sank 22 of the 33 ships in the Franco-Spanish Armada. Undeterred as the aggressor and expansionist, in 1808, Napoleon invaded the Iberian Peninsula and installed his brother Joseph as the King of Spain. [15] Finally in 1812, at the age of 42, Napoleon made his fatal blunder. He assembled la Grande Armée of 500,000 soldiers and, driven by the same obsession that had taken him to Egypt, invaded Russia. His goal again was to cripple Great Britain, this time by forcing Czar Alexander I 20 to join a Europe-wide blockade 21 of British trade. Napoleon reached Moscow on September 14 only to find it deserted and put to torch by order of its mayor. Russia s notoriously 22 long and bitter winter was coming; the invading troops were exhausted and starved after fighting an enemy who d destroyed the harvest to deny them food; and Napoleon, who was an epileptic, 23 remained for ten days in a Kremlin 24 bedroom before emerging to take command of his desperate army. He ordered a retreat through the snowy and desolate territory. The long, exhaustive trek to France was survived by no more than 10,000 troops of the Grande Armée one of history s great military disasters that was made immortal by the 1812 Overture of Russian composer Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky. 25 Thrilled by Napoleon s defeat in Russia, the European nations, now thoroughly fed up with his wars and mayhem, formed an alliance of seven countries: Austria, Prussia, Russia, Britain, Portugal, Sweden and Spain. Between October 16 and 19, 1813, they decisively defeated Napoleon in the Battle of Leipzig. The victorious armies invaded France and the next April, the Emperor of France was deposed 26 by the French Senate. 27 Napoleon was exiled to Elba, an island near Rome, and made one more attempt to seize the reins. [20] In February 1815 he escaped from the island, resumed command of the French Army, and for 100 days ruled France. He was then defeated by British and Prussian troops at the Belgian town of Waterloo, and exiled again, this time to Saint Helena, a remote island in the Atlantic. 19. The Battle of Trafalgar (October 21, 1805) was a naval battle fought by the British Royal Navy against the combined French and Spanish Navies as part of the Napoleon Wars ( ). 20. Czar (or Tsar) Alexander I ( (r )) was the Emperor of Russia, as well as the first Russian King of Poland and the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland. He changed foreign policies towards France several times. 21. Blockade (noun): an act of sealing off a place to prevent goods or people from entering or leaving; a barrier or siege 22. Notorious (adjective): famous or well known, typically for some bad quality or deed 23. A person with epilepsy, which is a neurological disorder marked by sudden loss of consciousness and seizures, or convulsions, often due to abnormal electrical activity in the brain. 24. A kremlin is a fortified central complex found in major Russian cities. The most famous one is the Moscow Kremlin, but this may also refer to the government that is based there. 25. Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky ( ) was a Russian composer who famously included firing canons in the mentioned 1812 Overture. 26. Depose (verb): to remove from office suddenly and forcefully 27. The French Senate, also known as the Sénat conservateur, was established in 1799 and was replaced in 1814 when the Bourbon monarchy was re-established. The French Senate was one of the three legislative assemblies of Napoleon s Consulate. 3

4 He remained there in British custody until his death in 1821, at the age of 51. Napoleon s Legacy In retrospect, Napoleon should have stopped fighting wars in 1799 when he first took control of France as the First Consul of the Republic. It was during this period that he ordered, supervised, and significantly contributed to the drafting of laws that became known as the Napoleonic Code. 28 Most of Napoleon s biographers agree that this was his greatest lasting achievement. For example, Andrew Roberts, a prominent British journalist and historian, wrote that The ideas that underpin our modern world meritocracy, 29 equality before the law, property rights, religious toleration, modern secular 30 education, sound finances, and so on were championed, consolidated, codified 31 and geographically extended by Napoleon. Roberts also praised Napoleon s rational and efficient local administration, an end to rural banditry, the encouragement of science and the arts, the abolition 32 of feudalism 33 and the greatest codification of laws since the fall of the Roman Empire. [25] The biographer added that: Napoleon directly overthrew feudal remains in much of Western Europe. He liberalized property laws, ended seigneurial dues, 34 abolished the guild of merchants and craftsmen to facilitate entrepreneurship, legalized divorce, closed the Jewish ghettos and made Jews equal to everyone else. 35 The Inquisition 36 ended as did the Holy Roman Empire. The power of church courts and religious authority was sharply reduced and equality under the law was proclaimed for all men. German historian Dieter Langewiesche, another admirer of the new Alexander the Great, 37 as Napoleon was hailed in France, described the Napoleonic code as a revolutionary project that extended the right to own property and a speeded the decline of feudalism. He credited Napoleon with reducing the 1,000-odd city states and other minor entities of the Holy Roman Empire into a forty-state Confederation of the Rhine, as an important step toward the unification of Germany in The Napoleonic Code was established in While not the first legal code established in Europe, it was the first modern legal code to be adopted with a pan-european scope. It also influenced other countries to modernize through legal reform. 29. Meritocracy (noun): government or society in which the holding of power or status is attributed to people based on their ability or merit 30. Secular (adjective): denoting attitudes, activities, or other things that have no religious or spiritual basis 31. Codify (verb): to arrange (laws or rules) into a systematic code 32. Abolition (noun): abolishing a system, practice, or institution 33. Feudalism (noun): the dominant social system in medieval Europe, in which peasants payed homage, labor, or produce to vassals in exchange for military protection and furthermore nobles pledged fealty to the crown to keep these lands 34. The term seigneurial dues refers to what a serf or peasant owed for protection in a feudal system. 35. Jewish people still faced prejudice and discrimination throughout Europe. And while Napoleon s attitude towards Jewish people is unclear, their living conditions no doubt improved under Napoleon s rule. 36. The Inquisition refers to the period during which the Catholic Church attempted to combat heresy. It began in 12th century France and spread to other European countries, growing as a response to the Protestant Reformation. The Inquisition, particularly the Spanish Inquisition, is remembered for its cruelty, anti-semitism, torture, and executions. 4

5 A strikingly different conclusion about Napoleon s achievements is described in impressive detail by Alan Schom, an American scholar, in his 888-page biography titled Napoleon Bonaparte. Schom, who depicts Napoleon the individual as immoral and despicable he calls him The most destructive man in European history since Attila the Hun 38 questions the sanity of his attempt to invade England, and takes a dim view even of Napoleon s liberal views by pointing out that as the First Consul he shut down critical French newspapers. The documents left behind by Napoleon, in Schom s judgement, were at best legal fictions and at worst blatant lies concocted for the sake of whitewashing the historical record. For example, Schom claims that Napoleon lied in his reports from Egypt to disguise that the expedition was a fiasco. The author quotes one of the French generals accusing Napoleon of ordering him to poison his plague-stricken soldiers to speed up their retreat from Syria a flight that culminated, 39 Schom writes, when Napoleon left his troops without a fleet to save his own skin by escaping the plague to France. [30] Napoleon s worst sin, in Schom s eyes, was his cruelty to his own soldiers as well as his enemies. He accuses the commander of the Grande Armée of executing in cold blood thousands of prisoners of war, rendering homeless hundreds of thousands of civilian refugees, letting his soldiers rape thousands upon thousands of old women and young girls, ruthlessly looting hundreds of towns and cities, and [leaving to rot] across the face of Europe three million or so of dead soldiers of all nations [and] millions of wounded and permanently handicapped Schom concludes that The memory of Genghis Khan 40 paled in comparison with Napoleon s record. It s a verdict that Napoleon himself might have feared when, in summing up his career, he downgraded his military accomplishments: My true glory is not to have won forty battles, he said....waterloo will erase the memory of so many victories... But...what will live forever, is my Civil Code Napoleon Bonaparte by CommonLit is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA Alexander the Great ( B.C.E.) was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He is known for his successful military history and his campaigns in Asia and northeast Africa; by the age of 30, he had created one of the largest empires in the world. 38. Attila the Hun (circa ) was the ruler of the Huns and a leader of the Hunnic Empire. He was one of the most feared enemies of both the Western and Eastern Roman Empires. 39. Culminate (verb): to reach a climax or point of highest development 40. Genghis Khan (circa ) was the founder and emperor of the Mongol Empire, the largest connected empire in world history. 5

6 Text-Dependent Questions Directions: For the following questions, choose the best answer or respond in complete sentences. 1. PART A: Which TWO of the following statements best describe the central ideas of the text? A. Napoleon is a universally praised and important figure in Western history. B. Following the political turmoil and violence of the French Revolution, the last thing France needed was a new dictator. C. While Napoleon as a subject is controversial, most agree that his code represents the height of his legacy and achievements. D. Though the invasion of Russia ended his career, Napoleon s fatal mistake was the attempt to invade France s long-time enemy, Great Britain. E. Despite his failed attempts in battle and conquest, Napoleon is nevertheless generally considered a military genius, one with a ruthless drive to build an empire. F. Napoleon created greater harmony in Europe by forcing his enemies to unite against him, bringing on an age of prosperity and peace. 2. PART B: Which TWO of the following quotes best support the answer to Part A? A. He was a military paragon, a natural-born warrior and a ruthless conqueror bent on controlling ever more nations and territory. (Paragraph 2) B. Napoleon was 26 years old, and the way he answered his calling was by fighting what one biographer called a series of unnecessary wars. (Paragraph 7) C. While fighting that war, in 1804, Napoleon climbed the ultimate political rung by prevailing on Pope Pius VII to coronate him the Emperor of France. (Paragraph 12) D. His attempt to invade England, however, failed disastrously in the Battle of Trafalgar, where the British navy without losing a single vessel sank 22 of the 33 ships in the Franco-Spanish Armada. (Paragraph 13) E. Thrilled by Napoleon s defeat in Russia, the European nations, now thoroughly fed up with his wars and mayhem, formed an alliance of seven countries: Austria, Prussia, Russia, Britain, Portugal, Sweden and Spain. (Paragraph 18) F. Roberts also praised Napoleon s rational and efficient local administration, an end to rural banditry, the encouragement of science and the arts, the abolition of feudalism and the greatest codification of laws since the fall of the Roman Empire. (Paragraph 24) 3. PART A: What does the word paragon as used in paragraph 2 most likely mean? A. A poor example B. A model of excellence C. A failure D. A reformer 4. PART B: Which of the following phrases best supports the answers to Part A? A. dominated Europe and changed its history (Paragraph 1) B. a natural-born warrior and a ruthless conqueror (Paragraph 2) C. a brilliant politician who changed seamlessly (Paragraph 2) D. he was a cerebral author of liberal political reforms (Paragraph 2) 6

7 5. What does this quote by Napoleon I no longer considered myself a mere general, but a man called upon to decide the fate of peoples (Paragraph 6) reveal about his character? Cite evidence from the text to support your answer. 6. Which of the following best describes Napoleon s downfall? A. The violence and unrest of the French Revolution, which he had temporarily quelled, finally caught up with Napoleon. B. Napoleon treated the people poorly, particularly his soldiers, and they soon rose up against him. C. Napoleon s ambition eventually proved too much; the disastrous invasion of Russia cemented his downfall. D. The sale of the territories to the United States government was vital at the time, but the loss of power and revenue led to France s and Napoleon s downfall. 7. What purpose do the quotes by scholar Alan Schom serve in the section entitled Napoleon s Legacy? A. Schom s scholarly portrayal of Napoleon is not a positive one, and therefore including his ideas furthers the central idea of Napoleon s infamous, controversial legacy. B. The inclusion of Schom undermines the rest of the text, which upholds Napoleon as an important figure in world history; Schom disagrees with this idea. C. Schom s research proves Napoleon was not as highly regarded by his peers as we conceive of him today, thus furthering the central idea of awareness of biased legacies. D. Schom argues that Russia was not Napoleon s greatest blunder, but his general treatment of his soldiers this is the worst part of his legacy. 7

8 Discussion Questions Directions: Brainstorm your answers to the following questions in the space provided. Be prepared to share your original ideas in a class discussion. 1. How do you think the world has changed since Napoleon ruled? Do you think someone could conquer (or has conquered) land in the way Napoleon did? How is warfare similar or different to warfare in Napoleon s era? 2. After reading the text, do you think Napoleon was more of a revolutionary leader or a tyrannical dictator? Do you think any of his actions or mistakes were justified? Cite evidence in your answer. 3. In the context of this passage, how does power corrupt? Do you think, based on your reading of the text, that Napoleon was or became corrupt? How can we differentiate between ambition and corruption? Cite evidence from this text, your own experience, and other literature, art, or history in your answer. 8